Five Things You Should Know on Sunday's match at Vancouver

Will the Fire end their nine-match winless run on turf tonight vs. Whitecaps?

July 14, 2013

Jeff Crandall

Chicago-Fire.com

The Chicago Fire will look to bounce back from Sunday's 2-1 home defeat vs. Sporting KC as they visit Vancouver Whitecaps FC tonight (5:30pm CT on My50). Here are Five Things you should know about tonight's game....

Suspension and Injury Report

So, we know the Chicago Fire will be without the services of starting left back Gonzalo Segares and midfielder Daniel Paladini for Sunday’s match.

The club’s de facto left back, for almost his entire tenure with the Fire, Segares is suspended due to yellow card accumulation while Paladini of course picked up a red card late in Sunday’s match against Sporting KC.

Segares will likely be replaced by debutant Fire defender Shaun Francis who officially signed with the team hours before Wednesday’s friendly vs. Club America. The Jamaican international came on at halftime of that match and played reasonably well.

In terms of injuries, the Fire remain mostly healthy with only Logan Pause and Steven Kinney on the Athletico Injury Report. Pause moved Friday from being listed as “Out” to “Questionable” and with Paladini out, could play a part Sunday.

The Fire captain has been dealing with a lower back injury suffered in the team’s 2-1 win at Columbus on June 22.

Turf not so nice

Athletico Coaching Corner

It’s no secret that the Fire haven’t been good on turf recently. In fact, the team holds the league’s longest current drought without a win on an artificial surface at nine matches (0-7-2).

The side’s last league victory on turf came on June 27, 2010 in a 1-0 win at New England.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s Camilo sits just one goal behind Magee and Di Vaio, tied for second with Philadelphia’s Jack McInerney in the MLS Golden Boot race.

Early Goal, First Goal

The Fire’s biggest problem this season has been giving up the first goal in 14 of 17 MLS matches. More recently, the problem has been giving up a goal so early in games, with the Fire conceding inside the first 20 minutes of each of their last four league matches.

Like last season, they showed a knack for coming back to win against Colorado, Columbus and San Jose but were found out a little bit on Sunday by giving up two goals to Sporting KC inside the first eight minutes of the match.

If the Fire can figure out a way to get past the mental mistakes early on in games, this is a team that’s capable of giving anyone in the league trouble.